Luther for Evangelicals by Paul R. Hinlicky

Author:Paul R. Hinlicky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Theology;Martin Luther (1483–1546);Reformed Church—Doctrines;Evangelicalism;REL067000;REL067080;REL067110
ISBN: 9781493414482
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2018-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

4

The Atonement

Meditation on Christ’s Passion

In his early Meditation on Christ’s Passion (1519),1 Luther explains how to meditate fruitfully during Holy Week: not by scapegoating Jews or by trying to bribe God with self-flagellation or by sentimentality, but by realizing the cost of grace in the incarnate Son’s suffering for me, the sinner, that I might be freed from the guilt burden of sin that weighs me down and rise up to begin to vanquish sin by following my saving Lord, who stoops to me through the cross to lift me to the crown. The point of departure is the apostolic command “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5), and again, “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention” (1 Pet. 4:1).

The command to meditate on Christ’s passion points to an imitation of Christ, yet an imitation of His mind, His intention, not a mindless repetition of His recorded deeds, let alone a presumptuous imitation of the messianic work that is His alone. One could literally make a cord of whips and invade the local synagogue, but that would be anything but a true imitation of Christ, who drove the money changers out of the Father’s house of prayer for all peoples. A true imitation of Christ’s mind would be a similarly prophetic break with the religion business (scapegoating, bribing God, emotional manipulation in order to tyrannize consciences) in exchange for organizing ministry in the kingdom business of gathering all nations to the praise of God.

The truth is that the only way to follow Jesus literally would be to enter some kind of science-fiction time machine and find Him on the dusty byways of first-century Galilee, with His face set to go up to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51). Copying Christ’s deeds is simply not possible, because the settings of His actions and ours are always historically different, making the actions undertaken in them unrepeatable with respect to their significance. But with the “mind of Christ”—we should always recall that Christ is the One anointed in the Spirit to do the saving works of Israel’s true and promised son of David (Luke 4:18–19)—one moves the congregation away from the religion business into the kingdom business today with deeds not yet imagined in the New Testament, like sacrificially opening a day care center, or a homeless shelter, or a community garden, or equipping lay home visitors to call the lapsed to repentance and faith, and so on.

The imitatio mentis (imitation of the mind) is what is commanded of disciples who would follow Jesus through the cross to the crown. Being grounded in the mind of Christ, who suffered in the flesh, disciples with Christ-liberated minds can suffer and act in ever fresh and pertinent ways that advance the redemption and fulfillment of the suffering creation.

Luther diagnoses three mistaken ways of woodenly imitating deeds rather than the mind and motive revealed in Christ’s deeds and sufferings. These are scapegoating, turning the cross into a talisman, and the demagogic cultivation of sentiment.

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